


Supernovae are easy

by melonbutterfly



Series: Earthquakes and Supernovae [2]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Alternate Universe, First Kiss, M/M, Mutant, Teenagers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-15
Updated: 2011-01-15
Packaged: 2017-10-14 18:53:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/152373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/melonbutterfly/pseuds/melonbutterfly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John is new at the Academy, and he's completely obsessed with the guy who's supposed to tutor him in controlling his fire. Rodney McKay is a complete mystery; just as old as John, he's nevertheless been longer at the Academy than anyone else.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Supernovae are easy

**Author's Note:**

> As to the warning, John and Rodney are both sixteen; that's the only underage that's going on here.

"Concentrate," Rodney says, his voice weirdly hypnotic.

John tries to, tries to keep the flame he's controlling small and concentrated in the air between his cupped hands. Sweat is pearling on his forehead; it's hard, much harder than it should be, considering how little visible effect his effort is having. It was never this hard, those times he accidentally blew up; there had been a lot more fire those times, and he had barely felt dizzy. Now? Now he feels like he won't be able to keep up on his legs if he tries to stand up, knees weak like jelly. They always are after these lessons, though.

"Good," Rodney encourages. "Very good. Can you hold it like that?"

"Dammit, Rodney," John growls. "I've been holding it for five minutes already. Yesterday I held it for twelve. I made nine just before."

"Yes, and that was very good. That's why this time, I want you to try something slightly more difficult – try to make it hotter, but keep it as small as it is. Can you do that?"

That right there is the reason why training with Rodney works better than any of the other teachers the Professor had suggested; Rodney keeps him on his toes, keeps pushing. He isn't fully ready yet for this, but he isn't able to admit it until he tries. As soon as he starts to master something – the ability to create a flame on purpose, then create it in thin air, then keep it contained – he gets impatient, wants more. He always needs something unattainable to reach for; if he doesn't have that, he gets impatient and sloppy. Rodney is the first and pretty much only person so far who really gets that, at the Academy or elsewhere.

"Yes," John grits out and tries, tries really hard; he doesn't manage. For just a moment it seems to work, but then control slides away and the small flame he had been holding, the one that had grown brighter just a moment before, suddenly explodes. Flames burst against his palms and lick through his fingers before they abruptly vanish, obliterated by his startle. "Dammit."

"Well, back to practising holding it then, it seems," Rodney says dryly, sitting back. He looks at John searchingly while John rubs his face with his towel and holds out a bottle of water. "Drink some."

Gratefully, John takes the bottle and drains it halfway. While he's drinking, he glances at Rodney and notices that Rodney is staring at his throat, gaze fixed. When John sets the bottle down, Rodney quickly looks away, but his gaze sets back on John again almost immediately as he wipes his mouth with the back of his hand.

It's a weird thing, that Rodney is the only person John really gets along with when Rodney is so prickly and hard to get close to. Rodney keeps people at bay; he does have some friends, but even those don't really know a lot about him, are willing to tell even less. Really the only thing John could find out about him is the rumour that Rodney has been here since he was five years old, which does seem quite young to John, who came here a few weeks before his sixteenth birthday two months ago. It explains a lot, but in the end really nothing at all about Rodney.

Rodney can make the earth quake, quite literally. When he gets angry, truly angry – or scared – the ground shakes. He can't exactly practise this; he had apparently painstakingly learned control, John knows that because Rodney told him so himself, but he really can't go and start causing earthquakes.

Therein lies the irony; John accidentally starts fires just about all the time – when he's annoyed, when he's bored, when he's scared; it can basically happen anytime. He has to not only learn to control himself, like Rodney, but also to use his ability, the latter of which Rodney doesn't actually know how to do by personal experience. As the Professor put it, if John lives scared of his powers and repressing them, they will eventually consume him. And Rodney is really the only person who's able to teach John anything – or, to be more fair, who John is willing to let him teach.

Rodney fascinates him. It's not only because Rodney is such a fascinating person – and he totally is – but because John, after his family rejected him, needs to establish new social bonds, or at least so the therapist he has to talk to says. John doesn't care; he wants to know everything about Rodney. And while Rodney doesn't make it easy for him, he thinks they're slowly starting to be friends. Well, in John's opinion they have been friends for a while already, but Rodney is finally starting to realise it.

But John wants more. Just like in all other areas of his life, when he has obtained something, he needs to push for more; he wants it all.

John licks his lips, watches Rodney track the movement of his tongue, leans over and kisses him.

He sees Rodney's eyes widen up close; their lips are pressed together, warm and sort of motionless; not really how John imagined a kiss to be. It's his first kiss; he has felt desire for people before, but never strong enough to actually act on it.

As with everything else, Rodney is different.

They sit like that for a moment; Rodney doesn't pull away, and neither does John. They're sitting cross-legged on the floor, facing each other, and John still has the cool bottle of water in his hand.

He drops it and leans in closer. Rodney makes a noise low in his throat; his lips quiver against John's, and for a moment John thinks he's going to pull away, but then Rodney gasps and pushes back against him, and their kiss gets from sort of awkward (but still good!) to hot within moments. Their lips move against each other, rubs and nips and tiny kisses; and then, Rodney puts his fingertips on John's neck, hesitantly at first, but when John doesn't protest, his whole hand comes to rest on his neck, thumb pressed above John's pulse point. This time it's John who makes a noise, and suddenly – he can't tell who started – their mouths are open and their tongues are moving against each other, wet and weird and wonderful. It's really nothing at all how John pictured it, tight and so much more complicated than it sounds or looks, but John likes it, likes it a lot.

Still, they have to pull away eventually, breathing heavily and not quite sure whether to look each other in the eyes or not. John has kept his hands to himself up until that point, simply having forgotten they existed, but when Rodney's hold on his neck starts to weaken, he quickly reaches out and curls his fingers in Rodney's shirt, right above his heart. He doesn't say anything, but Rodney seems to get the message anyway; he keeps his hand on John's neck.

"Wow," John says eventually when it becomes obvious Rodney isn't going to say anything. Rodney hums his agreement and carefully avoids looking up at John; his face is red, but John doesn't think he himself looks any better. "Let's do this again," John continues, and that's when Rodney looks up.

Contrary to what John thought, he doesn't look shy. In fact, there's a determined glint in his eyes, and then Rodney says "How about now" and, not waiting for John's reply, unceremoniously climbs into his lap. John suddenly understands all the girls who squeal when they're happy; he sort of feels like squealing as well, but he manfully resists. Instead he rests his hands on Rodney's waist, giddy that apparently, he's now allowed to touch whenever he wants. Not quite wherever he wants, probably, but that will come over time. "I know why they call you a genius," he says happily.

Rodney says "Shut up" and then uses his mouth to make him.


End file.
